


new beginnings

by SmoshArrowverseFan



Series: every end of a time is another begun. [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Killing Game Was A Virtual Reality Simulation (Dangan Ronpa), Post-Canon, the other characters are alive dw they're just not awake yet, this is basically the prologue to my postgame simulation v3 au lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmoshArrowverseFan/pseuds/SmoshArrowverseFan
Summary: Himiko draws him a picture, once. It’s nothing fancy, really. It’s just a tiny silhouette looking up at the night sky. The drawing sits on top of Shuichi’s dresser, now. Maybe he’ll tape it up on his wall at some point, if he can find tape anywhere. Maybe, he’ll ask Himiko to make him more drawings, so he can tape them over the Danganronpa poster, and he won’t have to look at it anymore. Maybe he’ll plaster her drawings all over the walls, and all over the ceiling, too, so he’ll see them no matter where he looks.He doesn’t do any of that. The drawing sits, untouched, on top of the dresser.-or, how three survivors spend their time while they wait for their friends to wake up.
Relationships: Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki & Saihara Shuichi & Yumeno Himiko, Harukawa Maki & Yumeno Himiko, Saihara Shuichi & Yumeno Himiko, if you squint you can tell one of the ships i'm planning on including further down the line lmao
Series: every end of a time is another begun. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092551
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	new beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so like i said in the tags, this is basically a prologue for my post-v3 au!! there are a few different characters and relationships i'd really like to focus on, and there's a lot to play with in these kinds of au's, so needless to say i'm. very excited lmao.
> 
> ANYWAY yea!! i hope you enjoy this!! it was pretty fun to write :)

Shuichi’s world is very small.

It consists of his bedroom, a long hallway of mostly locked, empty rooms, a too-large cafeteria, a small, overly corporate-feeling lobby, a cramped media room, an enclosed courtyard, and a storage closet. There is a stark white double door with frosted windows on one end of the complex, but that has remained locked for the entirety of his time in the building.

Twice per week, he and his two remaining friends will be led out of the lobby, and into another room. It’s a boardroom with a long wooden table in the middle and far too many empty chairs seated around it, which has been adapted into a space to hold group therapy. Not that any of them says much of anything. Their therapist, whose name Shuichi hasn’t bothered to commit to memory, asks inane question after inane question, and Maki glares, and Himiko sighs, and Shuichi hums absently. The therapist typically jots down some notes in her tiny notebook, and never drops her plastered-on smile.

The therapist is just another Team Danganronpa employee. They all resent her, and she doesn’t care enough about them to make any sort of a real effort. She’s just window dressing, really. A way for Team Danganronpa to pretend they care about any of their “cast members” without actually putting in the work.

Shuichi suspects that they’re probably not getting the warmest hospitality the company has to offer, though. After all, the three of them, along with Kiibo, had effectively ended the series themselves. So, it makes sense that they’d be getting the bare minimum of assistance to keep up appearances. Still, it feels cheap, and Shuichi remains uncooperative during their sessions.

Shuichi’s bedroom is bare, even more so than his bedroom in the simulation. His bed is plain looking, and there’s a nightstand next to it with a small alarm clock perched on top. In the corner is a small dresser with basic, nondescript clothes, a far cry from the distinctive outfit he’d worn during the killing game. On the opposite wall is a large poster advertising the twentieth anniversary of the Danganronpa series.

Shuichi sleeps with his back to that wall.

The three survivors of the 53rd killing game gravitate towards each other during the daytime. Shuichi remembers feeling brave and defiant when they ended the killing game together. He remembers feeling so _certain_ , more certain than he’d ever been in his life. His artificial life, Shuichi reminds himself. As real as it felt, it was all false, manufactured by Shirogane and Team Danganronpa to tell an entertaining story.

Still. That false backstory is all Shuichi has. He clings to it. That certainty he felt during the final moments of the killing game was a stark contrast to the nervous insecurity that had hung heavy over him before.

Now, though, that certainty is beginning to wane.

It’s hard for it not to, when the three of them are simply… stuck in place. Nothing happens. They’re left alone with each other, and of course, their thoughts. There’s a lot of time to doubt yourself.

More often than not, the three of them sit in silence, usually while doing something absentminded. Himiko spends a lot of time drawing. She’s good, better than Shuichi would have thought. The things she draws are usually simple, but they’re neat, and she’s especially good at blending colors. Shuichi always had a hard time with that, which makes him appreciate Himiko’s drawings even more.

She draws him a picture, once. It’s nothing fancy, really. It’s just a tiny silhouette looking up at the night sky. The drawing sits on top of Shuichi’s dresser, now. Maybe he’ll tape it up on his wall at some point, if he can find tape anywhere. Maybe, he’ll ask Himiko to make him more drawings, so he can tape them over the Danganronpa poster, and he won’t have to look at it anymore. Maybe he’ll plaster her drawings all over the walls, and all over the ceiling, too, so he’ll see them no matter where he looks.

He doesn’t do any of that. The drawing sits, untouched, on top of the dresser.

Maki, meanwhile, has taken up origami, strangely enough. It isn’t something Shuichi had ever imagined Maki enjoying. Then again, the Maki of the killing game was far more focused on survival than anything else. She was more comfortable holding a crossbow or a knife in her hands than anything else. Still, Shuichi can’t help but think that the activity suits Maki, as he idly watches her fingers carefully but firmly press down various folds and creases. Her brow furrows as she folds the paper, and Shuichi thinks Kaito would call her adorable, if he were here. Not that Shuichi voices that. He didn’t have a death wish, after all.

Maki, like Himiko, shares her origami with them. She makes a little frog that jumps up when you press down on its back, and gives it to Himiko. It’s about the most excited Shuichi’s seen the shorter girl since they’ve awoken from the simulation. Since then, Maki’s made her a small army of little origami frogs, which Himiko keeps in her room.

She’s given Shuichi a couple of flowers, a simple butterfly, a very complicated-looking cactus in a pot, and a small handful of tiny stars. He keeps the paper cactus on his nightstand, near the alarm clock, and the rest he keeps on his dresser, next Himiko’s drawing.

Shuichi isn’t artistic, but he’s good with puzzles. He spends his time working through a handful of puzzle books that he finds on a bookshelf in the lobby.

They’re easy, compared to what he’s used to. Certainly much lower stakes than the life-or-death mysteries he’s solved during the killing game. It’s relaxing, in a way. Sometimes, Himiko or Maki will join him in solving one of the puzzles, but Himiko isn’t very good at them, and gets tired of them easily, and Maki finds them simple, and gets bored after a while. Still, he’s content to just be around both of them, all three doing their own thing.

He knows it’s irrational, but he’s half-convinced that if he lets them out of his sight, they’ll disappear or something. He has nightmares, sometimes, about walking into the cafeteria and finding Maki with a kitchen knife in her stomach, or discovering Himiko slumped over and unmoving in the media room. He suspects the others have similar nightmares as well, if the way Himiko clings extra tightly to them some mornings or the noticeable tension in Maki's movements some days is anything to judge by. Shuichi doesn’t mind. He’s a little glad, actually, that he’s not the only one who’s scared of losing them. They’re basically all he has left, at this point. He doesn’t remember his “real” friends and family, and the ones he does remember are exactly that. Fake. Maki and Himiko are all he has.

Well. Not entirely.

On the other side of those sterile, bright white double doors, the twelve remaining students (Kiibo really _was_ just an AI created by Team Danganronpa) have yet to wake up. Shuichi’s eyes are often drawn to the doors, even though he can only barely make out the vague, blurry shapes through the frosted windows. Occasionally, a Team Danganronpa employee will come through the doors, but Shuichi has barely gotten a glimpse of the other side, since the employees make a conscious effort to shield it from his view.

He remembers waking up inside of the room, weeks ago, but he doesn’t remember very much beyond that. The first day or so out of the simulation is still really foggy in his memory. He suspects it’ll remain that way, and he’s fine with that. He suspects he was frantic and confused, or maybe he was detached and unresponsive. Either one is plausible. There’s no need for him to remember the details, though, so he doesn't dwell on them too long.

What he does remember of the room is a distinctly chemical smell, and the fact that he'd tumbled out of some sort of... pod. He guesses that's a way to keep their bodies safe during the simulation. It strikes him as kind of odd, and too sci-fi for his liking. He frowns at that thought, thinking of Kiibo. Maybe the robot's sensibilities had rubbed off on him a bit. Still, he figures the strange pods must have done their job, at least, since he had been able to move around and function normally after the first couple of days. Shuichi still worries for the rest of them, though. He'll probably still worry he knows they're all awake, honestly. And even then, he'll probably worry. It's in his nature, he supposes. In a way, it's quite literally programmed into him. It's a trait he resents less and less, the longer he sits with it. Worrying kept him alive, at least.

He sees Maki and Himiko watching the doors, too, sometimes. They’ve definitely seen him. None of them mention it. There’s no need for that, either. They understand each other better than anyone else could, without having to put that understanding into words.

Shuichi misses almost (keyword, _almost_ ) all of his former classmates, honestly, but it's more complicated than that. They had all done things during the killing game that were less than ideal, and he knows that things are going to be hard, if ( _when_ , he thinks, because he has to) everyone wakes up. There's going to be a lot of guilt, and a lot of anger, and a lot of fear, and nowhere to place it that won't hurt someone in the process. It'll be messy. The people he grew to care about are going to be different, and hurting, and Shuichi knows that as hard as he tries, he won't be able to shoulder all of their burdens for them. He can help, but some things, people just have to deal with on their own. Shuichi is no exception to that, too, and there's a lot he has to work through.

He, too, had done things he wasn't proud of during the killing game. There were people he should have been able to save, red flags he’d missed, and words he'd said that he can’t take back. But he can try, at least, to move forward, and to help the people he'd failed. That's all he can do, really. They’ve been given a second chance, in a sense. They can _all_ do better.

Everyone just has to wake up first.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you sm for reading!! i hope you enjoyed this, and stay tuned for future installments!! they will definitely include... actual dialogue slakfdlasjf but this was more setup and introspection than anything else. i'll probablyy have the next part out sometime this week.
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated, and i hope you have a great day!!


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